Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Monday's blog post was a day late. If you haven't read it, you're definitely going to want to do that now.I made my way into the castle. I looked around for a guard who seemed to have some level of importance and said “You! Where is Catherine?”“In the dungeon as per your orders, emperor.”As I suspected, the Crusher was in fact the original Tim. The people under his command had no way to tell that I was not him. I said “Bring her to me!”The guard sent someone else to get her and said “Will that be all, emperor?”“No. Where is Theo?”“In the graveyard just north of here, sir. You put him to death for trying to stop your conquest to rule or crush all worlds.”“Of course. That is all.”He left and the other guard came back with Catherine in chains. I said “Release her and then leave us.”“But sir-”“Don’t question me!”The guard did as instructed. I moved towards Catherine. After taking a moment to compose herself, she punched me in the face. I said “I’m well aware that Tim deserved that and much more, but I’m not him. I’m his clone.”Her eyes widened. There were subtle differences between myself and the original, mostly in regards to our faces since mine was just based on what he thought he looked like. She didn’t pick up on the differences until she looked for them. “I’m sorry. What are you doing here?”“I have a plan to stop the original from crushing any more worlds. We have very little time. Do you know a spell that will close all the passages, not just one?”She thought for a moment. “Yes, but besides the normal scales, it would require shavings from a dragon horn and Cedric is a few decades too young to have any horns.”I pulled out the leftover horn shavings from making the Tunneler and asked “Is this enough?”“Yeah! Why do you-”“No time. Am I to assume Cedric is what you named the dragon that lives in Renolia?”“Yes. I’ll call for him.”She whistled loudly, and a small green dragon flew in an open window. She took some scales off of the dragon and the shavings from my hand. I said “Do we need to be anywhere special to do the spell?”“No, this will do fine.” She spoke a large number of magic words I had never heard before. When she finally stopped, she said “It’s done. The passages have been sealed off. Now we’re stuck in this world with a mad man... No offense.”“None taken. But we’re not stuck.”She eyed me suspiciously. “What do you mean?”“I got here by using a machine to reopen the passage you closed after I left. As long as the machine is on, we can still use it.”“Then what are we waiting for?”“Nothing. Just be sure to bring Cedric along.”We raced back to the passage. There was a large amount of steam, so much so that I couldn’t see what was going on. A large gust of wind emanated out in all directions from the center of it. The source was the Crusher, who was standing over Heather. Seeing Catherine and I, he took his attention off of Heather and started moving towards us. He said “Well, well, well. It’s official. Every single person I once knew has turned against me.”I said “I think you have yourself to blame for that one. Destroying worlds just because you can? That doesn’t sound like me at all.”“You don’t know what it’s like to have this kind of power. You’d do the same in my position. In fact... you did. I’m a bit tired of talking; our cousin made sure of that. I think it’s time to eliminate a few traitors.”Glancing behind him, I said “You may want to hold off on that.”“And why is that?”“My cousin’s power source is wind.”The Crusher was literally blown over. I thought teaching Heather a wind spell would come in handy. She said “Took you long enough. You’d better get in the passage, quick; I don’t think I can hold him off much longer.”I took out the amulet and guided Catherine to the passage, with Cedric tagging along. The two of them went in first. I hesitated. I said “Come on Heather, it’s time to go!”“You go first. I’ll be right behind you as soon as I blow him far enough back that I can get to the passage. Now go!”I entered the passage. The Gatekeeper appeared to me and said “I must congratulate you. You came up with a plan to stop the Crusher without resorting to killing him.”“Yeah. I’m so smart,” I said with more than a hint of sarcasm.“Something troubling you?”“Well, I pretty much just left my cousin to die back there. Even if he did just recharge her powers a bit, she’s still no match for him.”The Gatekeeper smiled. “I was going to save this for after you had finished what you set out to do, but I believe you could use the reward a little early.”“What are you talking about?” Suddenly, I felt something strange. I was... changing.“Enjoy your new, fully human body. I promised you your heart’s desire, did I not? I think you’ll find that you are once more capable of using magic.”My eyes widened. I turned around and yelled “Thank you!” as I ran back out the passage to Renolia. Heather’s barrier was up, but it was clearly about to break. I used magic to raise myself off the ground and fly straight at the Crusher. I made an icicle grow on my fist and used the moment to punch through his shield. The ice shattered, but my fist kept going and punched him in the face. He fell backwards. I said “Heather, go back to Earth. Be ready to cut the power to the Tunneler the moment I step through.”She nodded and walked back towards the passage. The fight must have taken a lot out of her. The Crusher rose to his feet and said “Fool! I don’t know why you can suddenly use magic, but it doesn’t matter. You have the same natural talent as I do, but I’ve had months to increase my skill. You cannot beat me.”I laughed. “You’re right. No matter how hard I try, there is no possible way I could beat you. Even if Catherine and Heather came back through and Heather somehow got fully recharged, you would still be too powerful. But at the same time, it must kill you to know that no matter how hard you try, you cannot beat me either.”He went into a fit of rage. I barely managed to throw up a shield before he pelted me with several large fireballs. Several spikes came out of the ground. Each time he hit my shield, I was pushed back a couple inches. I just needed to be a little bit closer... He started using a combination attack where he threw a fireball and an icicle at the same time. Finally, I was close enough. His attacks had pushed me within several feet of the passage. I took down my shield. He threw another fireball and I chucked an icicle. The explosion blasted me back through the passage and to Earth. I yelled “Shut it down!”

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

My hand trembled as I prepared to release a fireball. Feelings of inadequacy and doubt boiled in my mind. What effect could my limited knowledge of magic possibly have on someone as powerful as the Crusher of Worlds? What had I gotten myself into? I just hoped Tim knew what he was doing. After all, it was his plan.

Friday, August 3, 2012

I am the first person (from Earth, at least) to discover this metal. I shall name it... conductivium.Okay, Tim. Get off your ego trip and get back to the story please.Hey, what did we say about writing in each other’s posts? Hmmmm?

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

I sat down on a tree stump as I waited for Tim. I pawed through the satchel I had packed: swimsuit, mittens, flashlight, a towel, a water bottle, and a peanut butter sandwich. That should cover just about everything. Short of dragons. I patted the pocket where I had stashed the dragon horn chunk and the red gem from yesterday. Yep, still there.